A Puppet's Song
by Kimagure
Summary: Just an odd Ken reflection fic I took some time to write.


I can hear the notes plinking softly through my memory

This is just a bit of oddness that wormed its way into my head. And after having reread what I've written, I discovered--much to my surprise-- that my opinions of public education and of trust and understanding between parent and child kind of came shining through a bit. And if that sentence doesn't make sense to you, don't worry, this fic doesn't make much sense either. That's just the way my stuff comes out on occasion. 

And I know I'm behind on reading all the wonderful fanfics I've gotten on my other alias' authoralerts. X_x I'm slowly catching up! Really! I'm just about a week and a half behind on my reading. . 

Anyway, here's the fic…

**A Puppet's Song**

I can hear the notes plinking softly through my memory. It's a soft, gentle…warm melody. Soothing as the notes climb and fall, dancing gracefully next to each other. I can even recall the peace on his face as he played them, knowing that only in the song could he be free. Only in the melody could he find solitude with his own thoughts. He loved playing the piano, plunking those keys. I know he did. 

But his melody is haunting me now. Interrupting my thoughts and disturbing my peace. Haven't I…through all of this…_earned a respite? _A quiet solitude of my own from this?

I suppose not.

I can hear him playing in my head, over and over and over again. It's making me sick, but I can't make the tune stop. 

Even though it's been dead for years.

I can picture his childish fingers poised over the keys hitting each with a secret joy. Maybe I just didn't realize it at the time, maybe I was just too young. How was I to know that in watching him, I was witnessing my own future? I just wanted to be seen. 

But the song was always his. 

I just want to escape. I don't know how. I never knew. Mother said I slept for two full days. Can I go back to that? To sleep and just not wake up again? Were those two days of unconsciousness all the harmony I'm allotted for this lifetime? 

The melody loops back to the beginning and he's got that small smile on his face that he's trying to hide again. If they knew he'd found a place for himself between the notes, they'd take it away. They would turn that too into something ugly and unbearable. Just like everything else. They would capture that talent too and shove it into a tiny cage to be displayed like an exotic animal for the world to see. So he guarded those notes as if they were the most precious things in the world. I suppose to him, they were. 

I never had a place like that between notes. I knew I never would, I think. He let them lead him to the slaughter. Like a sheep, he let them herd him into his place. And I learned from watching him how things were to be done. 

In a way, my destruction is a legacy left to him. Maybe it would have been easier if I hadn't known what my future would hold. Maybe if I'd been as blind and dumb as to where I was being herded as he had been, then maybe I would have been able to withstand it. Maybe I would have been able to find a tiny bit of pleasure—maybe even felt a bit of pride--in the things I did. But I knew. 

The notes trip, skipping quietly in a soft song that was his peace, that I know gave him tranquility. But those same notes make me shudder, and they raise gooseflesh on my arms as they give that haunting echo through my head. I hate this song. I hate that he could find peace. 

I used to be able to find joy in learning. It was a child's game to know more. To know all the whys of this incredible world I lived in. But nobody wants a person with a thirst for knowledge, I've discovered. They want a puppet on a string. They want to be able to pull the appropriate strings and get the correct action and response that awes the crowd. 

Why praise the puppet then? Was it the puppet who pulled his own strings? Of course not. Should the puppet feel pride in the things it's accomplished? Why should it when the things it's done were only those things dictated and controlled by the puppeteer? 

So I became the puppet in my brother's place, parroting back the right answers. They unearthed everything I'd ever found joy in and killed the happiness I found it. Even video games. Even in the one place where I could still be just a child. And they turned it into another competition and another stage for the puppet to dance across. 

So I found pleasure in destroying. Warping things to a sick and twisted will. My will. Surely my puppeteers would never be able to take this and turn it against me. No one would ever want to see such cruelty displayed proudly to the world, would they? But I couldn't be sure. So I hid it. This was my "peace". In doing this I was "free". 

His song, so beautifully harmonic, floats through my head as if on a breeze. The notes twinkle into each other and they sound perfect. Uplifting and unfettered. 

And my song sounds so discordant. Sickly and out of tune. A mockery of his… 

They want forgiveness. 

What does the hollow forgiveness of the puppet mean though? If I say the words for them, they'll be as false as everything else I've done for them. Do they realize that? They've asked for empty meaningless words from me, for I certainly wouldn't mean them. How could I when this broken and ugly melody keeps playing in my head? 

As if the puppet could forgive the puppeteer for making it move, as if the puppet could forgive itself for the moves it's made. Ridiculous.

But something has to happen. A play does not stay in intermission forever. So I either must continue this farce or end it. I can't be the puppet any longer, but I don't know if I have…if I ever had…the strength to be anything else but. Truth is, being the puppet seems to be the only thing I truly excel at.

And I know now that I can't cut those strings on my own. 

But I can't live in this broken song of Sam's anymore. 

"Mama?Papa? I'll give you that second chance if you'll give me one." 

And maybe that will be enough. 


End file.
